


The Death of Corran Redwood

by thedevilchicken



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Assassination, Assassins & Hitmen, Backstory, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Developing Relationship, M/M, Mid-Canon, Original Character Death(s), Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 23:20:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21126920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: His name is not Jaqen H'ghar, but his name is Jaqen H'ghar. The truth of the man who killed Corran Redwood lies somewhere in between the two.





	The Death of Corran Redwood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [indigo_inks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigo_inks/gifts).

The man he is is not the man he was, and the man he was is someone that he swore he'd never be again. The truth of the man who killed Corran Redwood lies somewhere in between the two. 

\---

He'd been to King's Landing before. Westeros is no more his homeland than it was the man's whose face he wore to go there, but it wasn't his first visit to the Seven Kingdoms. It had been a very long time, however, and the paths he trod through the city seemed very different. Perhaps because he'd arrived by night and what he recalled was sunlight on the Red Keep, not moonlight on the Blackwater. 

He'd been to King's Landing before, and he wasn't there then to take in its many sights any more than he had been the first time; he had instructions to follow, and that meant a life to take for the Many-Faced God. He knew how he had to do it, too. He knew that it could not be quick.

For the first few days, all he did was watch the man that he'd been sent for as he went about his business. He found him easily enough, because he wasn't exactly hiding - Ser Corran Redwood was not the type of man to hide, or shy away. He was tall but not so tall as might be called remarkable, handsome but not so handsome as women would swoon in his wake, with features too coarse to be considered truly lordly but much too fine to be low. He _was_ lordly, of course, as the sole surviving heir to old Lord Redwood's title and their family's keep at Redwood Gate. Theirs was an old house, Jaqen understood, and what in Westeros passed for a noble one; once upon a time, however, they'd found their lands and loyalties caught up between the Lion and the Stag, and they had not ended the better for it. 

He watched him. In a roughspun cloak, with its hood pulled up to hide his new distinctive hair, with a hint of a stoop to his back that did not come to him naturally, Jaqen made himself invisible; he did it so that he could watch Ser Corran eat and drink and laugh and fight. 

He was thirty-six years old, with ice-blue eyes and dark hair that he kept in a loose braid down his back. When in armour, he carried his family's broadsword, and when out of it he wore two long knives forged from Valyrian steel, one strapped tight against each thigh. He administered the business of his house with all the finesse of a battleaxe on a tourney field, and rumour had it he'd spent ten long years as a sellsword somewhere across the Narrow Sea until his older brother's death had called him home. It had probably been a great scandal at the time, or at least it might have been in Redwood lands. And for all the did-he-didn't-he, Jaqen thought he saw the truth: when a cutpurse made to steal his coin in the bustle of the marketplace, Ser Corran showed them all the knives he wore weren't just for show. Their edges were sharp. For all his easy smiles and affability, so was he. 

There were other rumours, too. Different ones. The kind that Jaqen's orders wished that he use to his advantage and very much against Ser Corran's. And, as he watched him striding through the city with all the subtlety of a wayward ox, as he saw the places he went to without his men-at-arms, Jaqen knew there was also truth to that rumour. He understood what he had to do, and he began his work to achieve it. 

One week on from his arrival, Jaqen made first contact. He sat down in Ser Corran's preferred establishment, by the fire with his feet up on the table's edge, combing out his long, straight hair. Ser Corran watched across the room, over his third glass from a flagon of their not-best wine; he seemed to prefer their third best, the one that tasted like Pentoshi berries. Then, as darkness fell outside, he finally came closer. 

"I haven't seen you here before," Ser Corran said, as he leaned on the back of an empty chair. "Are you new?"

"Yes," Jaqen replied. 

"What's your name?"

Jaqen sat up straight. He moved his feet from the table. "A man has the honour to be named Jaqen H'ghar," he said. 

"You're Lorathi?" Jaqen bowed his head in place of saying _yes_ again. "I don't meet many men from Lorath in King's Landing. How do you come to be here?"

"A ship sailed from Braavos. A man sailed with it." 

"You could pay passage on a Braavosi ship and you still ended up here?"

Jaqen smiled. He cocked his head. "A man did not say he paid," he said. 

"You were a guest?"

"No."

"A stowaway, then?"

"No, not that." 

"Then I'll ask you again," Ser Corran said, apparently intrigued. "How do you come to be here?"

Jaqen swept his long hair back over his shoulders, with a teasing smile, and Ser Corran watched him do it. "A man has charms," he said. "A man can be persuasive." 

At that, Ser Corran laughed out loud. He raised his glass. "Then this man shall be on his guard," he said. "In case you try to charm him, too." And perhaps he didn't stay with him, but Jaqen knew he needn't count that as a failure. He knew, from the way Ser Corran glanced back at him as he left, that he hadn't failed at all. 

"You'll have to forgive me for asking, but are you a patron or an employee?" Ser Corran asked him the following night, as he took the empty seat between Jaqen and the fire. 

"Neither," Jaqen said. "Or both, from a certain point of view." He leaned toward the table and retrieved his jug of the house's third best wine; he refreshed his own glass and then did the same for Ser Corran's. "A man protects this house. A man spends his pay on wine to help the evenings pass." 

Ser Corran nodded. He took a sip of wine and looked at him, his clear blue eyes intent, but he said nothing else. When he departed again, he left a few coins on the table by the jug, so Jaqen could fill it up again. 

The next night, Ser Corran watched - perhaps amused, perhaps impressed - as Jaqen ejected two drunk men from the premises. They'd been harassing the proprietress's other employees, the ones that really made her money and that most patrons came to see. Jaqen knew what he was doing; he made the flick of his knife at one man's belt look easy, and everyone laughed as his trousers fell. But Ser Corran, more than any other person there, saw the skill it took not to carve the man's belly instead of his belt. He bought Jaqen a drink and took it to him personally. When he sat down with him, Jaqen didn't protest. 

"I think I'd like to see you fight," Ser Corran said, as he studied him in the firelight. "_Really_ fight. Not two men so drunk they wouldn't know the Red Keep from Flea Bottom." He leaned in closer to him with his elbows to his knees, the expression on his face all curiosity as he cradled his own drink. "What did you do in Lorath?"

"A man sold his expertise." 

"You mean you sold your sword arm. Sometimes with the sword still in it." 

"Just so." 

Ser Corran smiled. "I know a thing or two about that," he said. "You'll have to share a tale or two sometime, Jaqen H'ghar." 

Jaqen paused. He took a drink, his eyes on him over the silver rim of it. "Tomorrow, perhaps?" he said, and Ser Corran studied him. Jaqen knew his type: he didn't trust easily, but he wanted to trust. More than that, he wished to trust _him_.

"Tomorrow," he replied, at last, and he stood, and he lingered, as if he were unsure of his next move. "Tomorrow," he repeated, more firmly, and he gave a sharp nod more for himself than for Jaqen. "Good night." Then he turned and he left, but Jaqen knew that he'd come back. 

The next night, they told each other stories till the night turned into dawn. Ser Corran laughed and smiled and bought them food, and he drank too much, till the Red Keep might indeed have seemed quite like Flea Bottom. Jaqen helped him up the stairs to his own room and he stretched him out in his neatly made bed. He pulled off his boots, and he eased off his doublet, and he let him sleep almost till noon. He snored. And he seemed to smile even in his dreams. 

The next night, the conversation was somewhat more subdued. Ser Corran talked about his family, the feuds, the family tree that branched out in so many directions that it was as dense as the tall redwood forest that grew around his father's keep. He talked about the Free Cities and the fact he would have liked to stay there, about Braavos and Pentos and Lorath and Myr, and the great grass sea of the Dothraki. Jaqen had seen those places, too, and he told him so, more truthfully than he'd intended. When Corran took him by the wrist, and leaned in close, he felt his chest suddenly tighten. It felt like a triumph and a tragedy both at the very same time. 

The next night, when Jaqen left the fireside, he told him, "A man must sleep. A man has obligations." 

Corran nodded, and he let him go. 

The next night, when he left the fireside, he told him, "A man must sleep. But a man has enjoyed tonight's company." 

Corran smiled, and he let him go.

The next night, when he left, Jaqen told him, "A man must sleep. But he regrets that he must sleep alone." 

Corran frowned. "Are you asking me to join you?"

"A lord might find that difficult." 

"I'm not a lord. Not yet, at least." 

"Then a man would feel no shame in asking." 

Corran didn't come. He stayed by the fire. But Jaqen could see that was far from what he wanted. 

The next night, when he left the fireside, Jaqen said, "A man must sleep. And he won't ask again." 

Corran remained where he was, but only for a short time. As Jaqen was undressing, the door to his room opened behind him. He didn't need to turn to know precisely who it was. 

When they kissed, Corran tasted like sweet Pentoshi berries. When they touched, Corran's hands were rough against his skin and made him shiver. When they lay down together, Jaqen told himself his faith and duty were the only reasons why.

In the morning, he woke smiling and found that Corran hadn't left. When he rode Corran's cock like a strange kind of good morning, the bed creaked underneath them. Even if it had collapsed underneath them, he's not sure he would have stopped. 

\---

Thirteen nights ago, he killed Corran Redwood. Now, he waits in a cell for what's coming to him. 

"Who was it that hired you?" Corran asked, in Jaqen's bed, with the knife pushed in between his ribs. It was one of his own, that old Valyrian steel that hadn't come from the heirlooms of House Redwood. He'd probably stolen them somewhere in Essos he'd sold his sword, or else he'd won them, or maybe even bought them, but the fact was he was dying by them. He knew it. Jaqen supposed Corran Redwood had seen enough death in the brief duration of his life to know it when his own time came. Jaqen had seen enough dying realisation to know he understood.

"Who was it?" Corran asked again.

"I don't know," Jaqen replied. 

"How can you not know?"

"I don't ask. It's not my place to know." 

He could see that was not the response that Corran wanted. As he held him, blood in his hair from Jaqen's hands, blood on his face from Jaqen's fingers, he wondered if he would have told him if he'd known, but he didn't know. He does each job as it's given to him, then sloughs the face and moves on to the next. Corran Redwood was not the first, nor would he be the last. He can't allow himself regrets, but Jaqen understands that he was more than just another sacrifice. 

There are as many ways to kill a man as there are men living, and Jaqen knows that. There are ways to make a death seem like an accident, ways to point a finger at another, ways to make it quick or slow, ways to make a statement. Corran's death was meant to look like the work of his male lover; in the end, Jaqen didn't have to do much work to make it look like that. They'd found him with him, after all. He'd felt he owed him at the very least that much.

"Don't go," Corran said, so he didn't go. He took out the knife and held him as he bled.

"Don't go," Jaqen replied. But Corran really had no say in that. 

He doesn't mind the cells, not really, not when he remembers all the places worse than that he's been. He doesn't mind the dark, or the rats, or the way the others stare at him because for days and days they wouldn't let him wash the blood off any part of him; he wore Corran's blood beneath his clothes. He doesn't mind the cells because he knows that this won't be the place his journey ends. 

The cell door opens. A lamp shines in, and he's chosen. 

The long road north might be the best place for him, for a while. Jaqen's strange hair and bright smile will serve him just a little longer, and then he'll put on a new face. The transition will be seamless. There won't be time to glimpse the truth of him between the two.

And as long as he's Jaqen H'ghar, it's almost like _he_ didn't kill Corran at all.


End file.
